IR art sites

http://www.humanitiesweb.org/human.php?s=g&p=a&a=i&ID=92

• Follows the creation of accessible art
  

http://industrialrevolution.sea.ca/impact.html

• Details the different artistic movements and artists
  

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1026/is_4_159/ai_73410717

• Explains that the emergence of artificial lighting impacted painting style

http://www.myeport.com/published/u/hs/uhse002/slideshow/11/

• Images of products of the IR.
  

blog comments

I commented on Alec' and RG's blogs.

Album Review

EVERY DAY AND EVERY NIGHT by Bright Eyes
Not for the fainthearted, Every Day and Every Night is a darkly emotional epic poem that seems to have been directly ripped straight out of the soul of Conor Oberst, singer, songwriter and mastermind behind the band Bright Eyes. A raw and indiscriminantly honest ode to any person who has suffered from loneliness, heartbreak, substance abuse or depression, this album perfectly preserves pure sadness in musical form. Lyrically beautiful, structurally intense, musically haunting, the musicianship of this album is tailored to a tee. Mostly acoustic, this album is very uncommercially produced, capturing the quintessential Bright Eyes sound of raw, deeply flawed vocals that fully make up for their lack of smoothness with the impact of their pure emotional power, and musical accompaniments that are stunning considering their lack of professional production.
On the aply named "A Perfect Sonnet", Oberst expresses his intense frustration at being unable to find love in a painfully tortured yet absolutely breathtakingly way with lyrics that can only be thought of as poetry in its finest form. His blinding desperation at being alone is obvious with lyrics such as "I believe that lovers should be chained together/thrown into a fire with their songs and letters/and left there to burn/left there to burn in their arrogance", his sadness manifest with his resignation to his state: "But as for me I'm coming to my final failure/I've killed myself with changes trying to make things better/But still ended up becoming something other/Than what I had planned to be". Anyone who has experienced any form of heartache, upon listening to this song, will realize that Oberst managed to express through music what makes loneliness so painful. The simple yet longing acoustic guitar part creates an expansed echo that conveys a sensation of complete emptiness and spiraling, binding desolation. On "Neely O'Hara", the ambient muted drum part and mysterious synthesized ambiance, accompanied by interspersed yelps and warped, hypnotizing vocals, cuts straight to the heart of the feelings of numbness and catatonic desperation substance abuse brings about. With chilling lyrics such as "And you think that things sound different/at the time when you speak/There are visions much clearer/than these blurs that you see", Oberst creates a haunting vision of a woman completely smothered by the effects of lifelessness.

Although perhaps difficult to listen to, this album is so lyrically and stylistically brilliant that it is sure to capture the attention of any person with an eye for noncommercial, emotional music. This album is the musical summary of all of the struggles and difficult emotions that a person can have in a lifetime, brought to life in the way that no one has found a way to express. Oberst manages to perfectly convey to the listener the extent of his passions and tribulations, breaking free of the emotional barriers that constrain most musicians. With his feverish, almost howling vocals and heartbreaking lyrics, anyone with struggles can relate to this album- it encapsulates what music was truly made for- emotional expression at its finest.

required listening

ZIGGY STARDUST by David Bowie
What initially attracted me to this song when I heard it years ago was its incredibly accurate encapsulation of the phenomenon that was David Bowie. Bowie was an ethereal, otherworldy creature with mass sex appeal and an incredibly glam, alien-like sound. The song lyrics seem to describe Bowie really well, the song referring to his alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The references to a person who "came on so loaded man, well hung and snow white tan," " he was the naz with God given ass", which easily characterizes Bowie's complete bizarre sexual persona. The song, which uses a rather typical glam rock guitar riff, is made completely original by the unexpected and explosive structure and vocal parts, and is overall complemented by a ballad-like melody. The song is rather poppy in its freshness and catchiness, but the usage of dissonant interludes really differentiates it from its other 70's counterparts.



DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING by Gerry and the Pacemakers
The melody and instrumentation of this song is annoyingly cliched and predictable, and accompanied by an overly saccharine vocal part, makes for an incredibly repetitive and mundane song absolutely devoid of innovation. This song is classified as "60's British Invasion" but is in fact can be barely differentiated from its souless and cookie-cutter 50's predecessors. The lyrics are stupid. The song is stupid. This song is ridiculous to the point that I almost regret spending time writing about it.




WHITE RABBIT by Jefferson Airplane
The eerie, mysterious instrumentation leading into the vocal part at the beginning of the song immediately creates a shady and dark atmosphere, a perfect introduction to a hypnotizing, spacey relic of the psychedelic era. The song definintely reflects the drug-addled environment in which this song was undoubtedly concieved. The powerful and commanding vocal part reminds me of a yogi's mantra, and of intense meditation. The balance between the free and mentally expanding percussion parts, the meandering and explorative guitar that alludes heavily to middle-eastern occidental scales, the lazy swarm of low bass swells, and the grounded, driven vocals of Grace Slick, could easily reference the united vision of peace-loving hippies staying steadfast among the haze of hallucinogenics.

Lit Circle, deuxieme partie

Section A

This book is incredibly fascinating and haunting, as it not only explores the hidden underbelly of crime that our modern youth is partaking in, but it also glances into the psychology of pathological "evil". It follows an extraordinarily atypical teenage boy, Alex, and his brutally violent and sexually exploitive escapades, and chronicle how his criminal tendencies are an unremovable part of his psyche. Despite very mentally manipulative techniques designed to dislodge all ideas of destructive activity from his brain, Alex is still inclined towards rape and brutality, as well as his other favorite form of violence, virtuoso classical music.
Themes throughout the book include:

• The concept of true criminality- Are humans born with an unremovable sense of violence that is simply buried under society's teachings?
• Is removing criminal tendencies from people though mind-altering techniques ethical? Should the human brain be tampered with in order to eradicate dangerous people from society?
• The line between music and  pure violence
• Is someone who is merely altered to fit into society's norms worth anything as a person?

Section B

Literal Question: Why did Alex return to having a gang after being betrayed in the past?

Bigger Question: Why did Burgess have Alex gradually regain and then lose his passion for violence naturally? Was this intentional to prove a point about human character? If so, what does it prove?

Section C

pg 115: "Delimitation is always difficult. The world is one, life is one. The sweetest and most heavenly of activities partake in some measure of violence- the act of love, for instance; music, for instance."
This quote is very interesting as it probes into the idea that life cannot easily be dividied into good and evil- that many things that are considered to be holy, such as music, can be interpreted in terms of violence.

Literature Circle Response

Since I am quite familiar with the general plot structure of the book "A Clockwork Orange", I cannot make a truly speculative prediction in terms of the direction that the book is taking. I know that Alex will proceed to be mentally proccesed through the Ludivco Technique in attempt to be converted into a model citizen.

When reading this book, I can only really imagine the world presented in terms of screenshots from the movie. I have not actually seen the movie, but I have seen stills from it, and therefore it has been rather difficult to formulate my own ideas of what Alex and his droogs actually look like. However, I do not have any idea of what Stanley Kubrick's vision of Alex's environment looks like, so that aspect has been left to my imagination. I envision Alex's world as one completely corrupted by material wants and greed, underscored by a rampant delinquent juvenile population. His world is overrun by selfish lawmakers and easily bribed policemen, and innocence is lost at a very early age. In this world, 10 year olds follow charming strangers into drunkeness and then their bedrooms, and laugh as they are drugged. The streets are incredibly unsafe, and schools for the negligent are filled to the brink.

This book is a very cynical take on a dystopian society, and in a twisted way seems to attempt to prove that human nature is the reason why utopia is never possible. Also, ironically, the glamorization of violence in this book reminds me of how the book itself is glamorized, and how Alex DeLarge is still a popular symbol in teen culture.

The only difficulty I had in reading this book was in deciphering the language of Nasdat, which is a dialect that Alex and his droogs use consistently, intermingling with regular English.

I solved this problem by researching the language and discovering multiple sites that serve as dictionaries. By seeing other peoples' translations of the dialect, reading the text became increasingly easier.